- Artist
- Theodore Roszak 1907–1981
- Medium
- Ink on paper
- Dimensions
- Support: 675 × 1073 mm
- Collection
- Presented by Sara Jane Roszak, the artist’s daughter (Tate Americas Foundation) 2015
On long term loan - Reference
- L03789
Summary
This is one of a group of twenty-four drawings by Theodore Roszak in Tate’s collection (Tate L03768–L03887), which relate to his unrealised sculpture The Unknown Political Prisoner (Defiant and Triumphant). A small steel maquette produced in 1952 for the international sculpture competition The Unknown Political Prisoner, which took place in 1953, is also in the Tate collection (Tate N06163). The drawings were all produced between 1951 and 1968 and are executed in a variety of media, including graphite, ink and watercolour, and vary in scale from just 202 x 134 mm (Tate L03788) to 730 x 1075 mm (Tate L03790). While most of the drawings are monochromatic, some use colour introduced in washes that add both depth and intensity. Each work depicts a variation on the same subject, showing a single or series of dynamic abstract forms with spiked protrusions – evoking a human figure atop a plinth. Although the majority were made between 1951 and 1952 as preparatory sketches for the sculpture, four were produced between 1959 and 1968 (Tate L03768, L03774, L03780, L03788), after the maquette had already been acquired by the Tate Gallery, London. Several of the pages have drawings of other sculptural works alongside the studies for the Unknown Political Prisoner – the elongated, insect-like drawings at the bottom of one sheet (Monument to Unknown Political Prisoner 1951−2, Tate L03785) appear to relate to Roszak’s Mandrake 1951 (Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland), a work roughly contemporary with Tate’s maquette; another, Mixed Sculpture Sheet 1951–2 (Tate L03786), has a number of studies for various sculptures including several that relate to Roszak’s Invocation series (for example, Invocation V 1962, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York).
Organised by the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London in 1953, the international competition to design a sculpture on the theme of The Unknown Political Prisoner was intended to promote interest in contemporary sculpture and, as its subject suggests, ‘have commemorated all those unknown men and women who in our time have given their lives or their liberty in the cause of human freedom’ (quoted in Marter 1994, p.30). Attracted by the chance to have their maquette realised on a monumental scale in a site ‘of world importance, such as a prominent situation in any of the great capitals of the world’ (The Unknown Political Prisoner competition entry form, Tate Archives TGA 955/1/12/256), 3,500 entrants from fifty-seven countries submitted entries for the competition, although in the event none of the proposed monuments were ever constructed. Roszak’s submission was first shown at the Museum of Modern Art, New York between January and February 1953 as one of eleven entries by American artists. These works – including those by Alexander Calder, Naum Gabo and Richard Lippold – were chosen to represent the country in the competition’s final exhibition at the Tate Gallery in London between March and May 1953, where the final judging took place. Writing about his entry in a letter dated 28 April 1953 to the organiser of the exhibition, Anthony J.T. Kloman, Roszak wrote:
In thinking about the forms for the maquette, I was strongly motivated by the moral and social values implicit in the subject … In this instance, I envisioned the individual as politically committed either by accident or design against tyranny and oppression … While we have history to attest to the endless forms of human incarceration as a reward for ‘sinning’ against the state, we have, nevertheless, witnessed the slow and hard won gains of those beliefs that have been sustained.
(Quoted in Alley 1981, pp.653–4.)
Representative of the extensive preparatory work for his competition entry, this group of works on paper reveals the fundamental role that drawing played in the artist’s process. Termed a ‘compulsive draftsman’ by curator Paul Cummings, Roszak consistently used his explorations on paper to experiment with and develop ideas: ‘Drawing was the physical revelation of his insight into the imaginative process. In searching for the proper combination to elucidate his statement, he manipulated shapes throughout sheets of sketches. He would combine freehand and ruled lines and shift perspectives and viewpoints to arrive at a desired configuration.’ (Cummings 1984, p.3.) Recording numerous changes and amendments to the design for the maquette in graphite and ink before the artist committed to a metal cast, the drawings illustrate elongations of line and alterations of shape as the stylised figure is reworked in pursuit of a finished form. A variety of paper is also used – plain, squared or torn directly from a sketchbook – revealing the various locations in which the drawings were produced, as well as the varying degrees of finish; some are schematic sketches while others are fully developed with watercolour and gradations of tone. While most of the drawings isolate the maquette and its plinth as an object against a neutral background, one shows it imagined in situ, romanticised in monumental form in a turbulent landscape, perhaps a raging sea (Study for Monument to Unknown Political Prisoner 1951−2, Tate L03772).
Conveying a jagged texture through scratched ink and sharp graphite lines, these expressionistic drawings are part of Roszak’s wider practice, which has been viewed as a critique of the optimistic faith in technology, especially in light of its devastating use during the Second World War. Rather than being indicative of conflict or struggle, however, the drawings express resilience, establishing the individual as triumphant and defiant against oppression – as the title of the project suggests and as Roszak wrote: ‘
The concept of the Unknown Political Prisoner undoubtedly has many ramifications, yet examining it from a human and moral point of view, it strikes me as coming perilously close to the embodiment of man’s finest moments – particularly when he stands defiant in the face of oppression and ultimately vindicates his stand as an individual, in social triumph.’
(Quoted in Marter 1994, p.33.)
Further reading
Ronald Alley, Catalogue of the Tate Gallery’s Collection of Modern Art other than Works by British Artists, London 1981, pp.653–4, maquette reproduced p.653.
Paul Cummings, The Theodore Roszak Bequest, exhibition leaflet, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York 1984.
Joan Marter, ‘The Ascendancy of Abstraction for Public Art: The Monument to the Unknown Political Prisoner Competition’, Art Journal, vol.53, no.4, Winter 1994, pp.28–36.
Hannah Johnston
December 2014
Arthur Goodwin
October 2018
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